Donate a book. Read about donating a FREE Flat Daddy below.

Many of our military service persons will be away from home the coming year serving our country. As a visitor to this website, you have the unique opportunity to do a lot more than just put a ribbon magnet on your car!

Together we can do something very special to help military families stay connected with their deployed loved one. We have over 850 military families who would like to receive a copy of the deployment guidebook, “I’m Already Home…Again – Keeping your family close while on assignment or deployment”. For $14 you can purchase a copy here, to be delivered directly to a family who has requested it. You can even have a personal message from you handwritten inside the front cover! Just tell us what you want to say in the comments section of the order form.

Mary Loverde of Life Balance, Inc. (www.MaryLoverde.com) began Operation Connect a Family and below is the initial letter she sent out to explain why your help is needed:

"Military families are especially vulnerable to tough separations.  I am always on the lookout for powerful connection tools and I have found a wonderful one designed just for them. I’m Already Home...Again - Keeping your family close while on assignment or deployment by Elaine Dumler is a book full of easy, fun, inexpensive and amazingly heartwarming ways for keeping service men and women connected to their families while they're separated. With ingenious connection tips, like how to write a Legacy Letter to a spouse or how to create Flat Daddy, (a life-size, waist up photo of Dad/Mom put on poster board so little children will recognize their parents when they return) this book has helped tens of thousands of separated families -

...and together we can help a lot more!"

So I am asking you to join me in Operation Connect a Family.

Here’s all you need to do:

• Click on the button below to purchase one or more copies of "I’m Already Home...Again". The books will be delivered to military families, giving them an invaluable tool that many of them simply cannot afford to buy themselves. (BTW: It goes without saying I have no financial gain in this purchase.)
• Forward this web address to as many others as you can. The more families we can help the better.

Here’s what military families are saying about the book:

“I wish I had this book at the beginning of my marriage to a soldier. It would have made the many deployments a much different experience. I think as military wives, we need to use all the tools available to help us cope with our special circumstances.”
- M. Fichtner, the forever loyal wife of a Special Forces soldier

"Today the reality of how much your book has helped hit when a lady emailed me (I am Coordinator of our family support group) asking for help with her children who's Daddy is deployed in Iraq now. All the ideas that I gave her came from this book! What joy it was to pass along quality information that worked wonders in our home."  

- Jeannette (via email)

“Doing well does not mean much if we don’t do good.”  This project is a simple yet powerful way to make a huge difference.  No matter our political bent, we all benefit when our service members come home feeling connected to their families. "

- Author Anna Quinlan

Please partner with me to make Operation Connect a Family a heartwarming success.

Make a difference with the FREE Flat Daddy project:

Have you heard in the news about "Flat Daddy™?" I've been working with military families for over three years now helping them stay connected with each other during deployment. One of the ideas that I've helped start is "Flat Daddy." It's a waist up, full size, mounted photo of a deployed parent that is there as a daily visual reinforcement to children, especially so that their youngest kids will know who they are when they return. Can you even imagine coming off the plane after being gone for over a year and hugging a toddler who is crying because you're a stranger to him/her? It's awful.

I tell you this because it's been in the news worldwide and they are expensive for families to create. I'm currently working with a Graphics company in Ohio and we're trying to get sponsor funds to create a “Flat Daddy” for FREE to any military family who wants one! Lexjet in California has donated all the vinyl adhesive that the figure is printed on, and SFC Graphics prints and mails them for only the costs of ink and printing…about $40 each…a huge cry from the $110 it costs a family at Kinko’s!

We started with a small “pot” of sponsored funds to see how it would go and have since been overwhelmed by the amazing response. As of today, we have put over 5700 “Flat Daddies” into military homes…for FREE. We even have entire units that would like to be sponsored and if you’re interested in national publicity, sponsoring an entire unit is the way to do it. Barbara Claudel with the Maine National Guard created 240 of them for her entire unit and ended up on CNN, NPR, in The Boston Globe, Fortune magazine and the New York Times talking about how she did it. This started the frenzy. I do newspaper interviews at least 3 times a month about this project and I’d love to “talk up” my sponsors. Here’s what it takes:

One Flat Daddy for a military family costs $49.50 ($9.50 shipping included).  You can sponsor as many as you’d like. If you are seriously interested in sponsoring an entire unit, then call me because I can get you connected and give you the press time and have your contribution be tax deductible.

Here’s what to do NOW –

• Hit the Donate Now button to donate immediately!
• Call Elaine toll free at 1-866-780-0460 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it to sponsor an entire unit or make a tax deductible contribution of over $250.
• Or, click here to visit my Operation Connect a Family website to read helpful FAQs and learn more about the program!